I’ll post photos from the exhibit reception (which was a huge success!) soon, but first I have to update with my most important and exciting news:

I am engaged!

The plan was for all friends to to head out to a restaurant after the reception to celebrate, so after we got the food cleaned up people started drifting away with the intention to meet us there. I said good-byes to my immediate family, who weren’t going out with us.  My boyfriend of over 5.5 years, Nik, and I were the last to leave. Once I had retrieved my coat, he told me he had a surprise for me. My thoughts? He must have bought me a present for finishing my exhibit, how sweet! Instead, he blind-folded me and spun me around multiple times, then lead me down the hall. I was asked to plug my ears, which I did so suspiciously. Because I like the full effect of surprises, I plugged them tight so I couldn’t see or hear anything.  I could tell when we went outside, though, because it was significantly colder and I could suddenly feel snowflakes. I could also smell something warm and good, like woodsmoke. By this time I am extremely suspicious and think I may have an idea about what’s going to happen.

Even my assumptions didn’t prepare me. When I removed the blind-fold, I was greeted by a half-circle of my closest friends and family, all holding sparklers as these huge fluffy snowflakes of the first real snowfall drifted down. Nik got down on one knee, proposed, and put a gorgeous ring on my finger (I said yes, of course!). And then the bells started ringing from the campus clocktower. No kidding.

It was absolutely perfect! He planned it so well to have everyone there, even out-of-town friends, and I had absolutely no idea because they were already there for the art exhibit! I am still in awe and shock, and I am so utterly happy.

December 3, 2009

My friends! Unfortunately my family and few others present aren't in this photo, though.

Right outside of the Univeristy Art Center where I've spent most of the past 4.5 years.

Well while I’m waiting for an ungodly large Photoshop file to save, I may as well throw some updates your way! I’ve got all 6 illustrations for my senior show well on their way to completion. A few need more work than others, but everything has color slapped on and some only need some minor revisions. I’m going to work hard all this week to see if I can finish them all up and then use next Monday’s critique for any nit-picky things. Pretty exciiiiiiting! Okay, I still have three weeks until I need to start hanging the work in the gallery space, but I can definitely feel it drawing closer.

work in progress of the last page

linework for a full-page spread

I still need to find a good Plexiglas supplier and test out paper types to print on. I’d really like to have a nice paper with a bit of texture so I can deckle/tear the edges, but another classmate of mine wasn’t having any such luck with both hotpress and coldpress watercolor papers. He ended up using the print shop’s enhanced matte paper, which is a terrific paper, but it doesn’t have that “traditional” feel to it. We’ll see if I can find some sort of bright white paper that absorbs the ink perfectly.

I’ve also been working on re-designing my website…. again. I just have so much fun with HTML and web design! The new design will allow me to periodically change the design imagery without much problem, too.

And in other unrelated news, Happy Birthday to my boyfriend, Nik! <3 <3 <3

That is all for now.

Steadily working away at pieces for my upcoming senior thesis show. Here’s a WIP of the first two pages, which merge together seamlessly for a full spread. Just imagine the book’s dividing line down the middle for the time being.

Sketch shot and work-in-progress linework for an editorial piece about stockholm syndrome.

And because she’s such a goofball… a photo of Jinni’s latest exploits. She discovered she can jump down behind our stacked washer/dryer unit. At first she need to be rescued because there wasn’t enough room for her to jump back out, so after wiggling the huge thing back and forth to give her some space, I snapped this photo of her below. She was waiting so patiently and quietly for me to move it out for her.

Apparently the abyss is loads of fun, because she keeps jumping down there. Silly kitty.

In Loving Memory of Crow

April 2008 – August 11, 2009

Quite a lot has happened since my last update, which most likely explains why I haven’t updated sooner.

On August 11, I unexpectedly lost my beloved feline companion, Crow, to wet FIP. Until that day I had no idea what FIP was, and when I had taken Crow to the vet a few days earlier because he had no appetite and was grossly underweight, I hadn’t a clue he wouldn’t be coming home. I miss him terribly. To add insult to further injury, I have to wait several months before I can bring a new kitten home because the virus that causes FIP is highly infectious, and so I’d be putting a new kitten at risk. In the mean time, Jinni has been bonding with me. She’s not as enamored with me as Crow was and tends to do her own thing more often, but she’s becoming more and more affectionate with me.

I’ll forever miss you, my little Crowface. We only had a year together, but it was a helluva time that I will always cherish.

On a more upbeat note, I finished all of the design and patterns I had been working on over the summer. I’m going to try and sell some of these companies that sell bedsheets, greeting cards, etc. Hopefully someone will find one of my patterns beneficial! I had a ton of fun making them, and I can definitely see myself pursuing this field of illustration in addition to children’s books.

Catty cats in cattails was so much fun to do, and is a design for a greeting card or stationary. The others are repeating patterns that can be used on stationary, gift wrap, fabrics, etc.

Also, I have a strawberry Marble Pop that I am so excited to drink! Unfortunately, I promised my boyfriend, Nik, that I’d wait until he was present to open it. Why is it so great, you ask? Because there’s a glass marble inside that seals it, and you have to “pop” it down to open the bottle! Its fun. Trust me.

I learned about a very cool website today: YourFonts.com. You can create your very own fonts based on your unique handwriting, or even a font you designed, by downloading a template, writing out each character, and then uploading it. The program will transform your written characters in a complete font set for you to download and use, all for free!

I’m definitely going to have to try this out when I have some spare time.